Biography

Biography: Darren Hayman

Hefner 1998 (1003 X 1447)

Darren Hayman is a thoughtful, concise and detailed songwriter. He eschews the big, the bright and the loud for the small, twisted and lost. For 15 years, and over 14 albums, Hayman has taken a singular and erratic route through England’s tired and heartbroken underbelly.

Hayman was influenced by punk through his art college years, but throughout the ’90s he was inspired by American lo-fi indie-rock. A chance meeting with John Peel favourites New Bad Things and shows with them in London and Portland USA taught Darren the DIY ethic and soon he was self-releasing records by his first band, Hefner.

Hefner, 2000 – click for full size (1404 x 1416px)

Hefner’s first records attracted the attention of cult indie label Too Pure and the broadcasting legend John Peel. The band’s first album, Breaking God’s Heart (1998), mixed raw, sexual words with religious imagery and earned the band a loyal, intelligent following in the UK, Europe and the USA.

The second album, The Fidelity Wars (1999), shifted the songwriting focus to the personal and remains a fan favourite. By the third album, Hayman had started to develop a sharp, incisive voice. The song narratives now took place in the toilets and kitchens of everyday British homes. Hayman sang about the thread on skirt hems and the hairline cracks in the china as well as the tears on cheeks. Soul influenced and layered with warm brass, We Love the City (2002)became the critical and commercial highlight of Hefner’s short, intense career.

Hefner, 2001 – click for full-size (1084x1305px)

Hefner’s valedictory album, Dead Media (2001), presented an erratic creative left turn. Largely leaving their guitars in their cases, the band made a bizarre, stuttering bleeping confection on ancient analogue synths, confusing critics and halving their audience.

Undaunted Hayman belligerently continued in this direction with his post-Hefner band, The French. Their album, Local Information (2003), ditched stringed instruments completely and imposed severe creative constraints such as only playing instruments monophonically (no chords).

Local Information torpedoed Hayman’s career and instigated a two-year legal tussle with his label. Despite this, it remains one of his favourite records and its tales of provincial disconnection established the blueprint for his solo career.

Hayman’s first solo albums, Table For One (2006) and The Secondary Modern (2007) found him licking his legal battle wounds, reflecting on a brief, failed teaching career and spending long, quiet afternoons wasting time in hidden cafés. The critics were charmed, all the same – The Guardian opining that Hayman’s profoundly English songwriting was “the match of Ray Davies.”

To support this burgeoning career, Hayman formed a backing band, The Secondary Modern. A loose, urban folk collective, they underpinned Hayman’s concrete sorrow with rural violins and tired pianos.

Darren Hayman, 2010 – click for full size (2567x2433px)

Meanwhile, Hayman was still busy exploring the quiet corners of British life. The Great British Holidays (2008) was a series of EPs recorded in typical UK holiday locations: a caravan, a bed-&-breakfast and a Butlin’s holiday park, while Pram Town was a landmark record for Hayman. The name is derived from a term of affection applied to the thriving Essex ‘New Town’ of Harlow, in the 1950s. The album dealt with Hayman’s own Essex childhood and small-town life, set against a backdrop of provincial ennui and crumbling civic amenities.

Pram Town (2009)was also the first of a series of Essex-themed albums, allowing Darren to explore nuanced subjects in detail.

Essex Arms (2010) saw Hayman apply his gimlet eye to the countryside – the lawless, broken gaps between the towns. The album proffered poignant hymns to the love and violence found in rusty cars and country lanes. Bruised acoustic guitars and twisted banjos accompanied dirty teenage tears down the Thames estuary.

Darren Hayman, 2011 – click for full size (2592x3888px)

2010 saw Darren become the victim of a vicious attack after a show resulting in hospitalisation with a fractured skull. The resulting album saw Darren dealing with temporary deafness in one ear and prolonged vertigo. A plaintive, restful record which avoided sharp or loud sounds, The Ship’s Piano (2011)dealt with ballroom instruction, dying houses, a world without children and the life story of the titular piano.

Lido (2012)offered another radical departure; an entirely instrumental album about open and disused British open-air swimming pools. Darren buried sourced field records amongst meandering ambient soundtracks to concrete and chlorine.

Darren Hayman, 2012 – click for full size (4000x3000px)

Hayman’s most recent album, The Violence (2012) – the last of his Essex Trilogy – is the most conceptually odd yet artistically satisfying of his entire career. A 20-song account of the 17th century Essex Witch Trials set against the backdrop of the English Civil Wars, this seemingly impenetrable subject matter is rendered entirely accessible by Darren’s most sophisticated arrangements and winning melodies. “It’s about how violence frightens us and how fear just leads to greater violence,” says Hayman of The Violence. The record received the best reviews of Hayman’s career (“His vision goes far beyond any other current independent artist and is a true treasure”, said Q Magazine; “Behind this bold and unique record lurks the thinking person’s indie-pop legend and unaccredited national treasure, Darren Hayman”, waxed Stewart Lee in The Sunday Times.

Darren Hayman and the Long Parliament, 2013 – click for full size (3776x2520px)

Darren currently plays with the best band of his career, The Long Parliament who essay songs from every part of Darren’s compelling, serpentine career, even re-inventing songs written for synthesisers on bass, drums, violin and piano.